Lim, Fei Victor

This article reports on a systematic review of research studies published from 2010 to 2021 on the use of apps for learning in the secondary English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. We extracted relevant information such as the studies’ country/region, research design, sample size, students’ age, apps’ names to conduct a thematic analysis to associate the types of apps and their learning outcomes. The findings suggest that quiz apps support vocabulary acquisition, puzzle apps support vocabulary and grammar learning, platform apps support reading and writing development, augmented reality apps support increased engagement, and virtual reality apps support development of listening and speaking skills. The factors involved in the effective use of apps for learning in the English classroom include the use of quality apps to support the teacher’s pedagogy, the profile and readiness of students to engage in digital learning, and the recognition that a classroom ecology is needed for effective integration of digital resources for teaching and learning.

In light of the shift towards incorporating multimodality in the curriculum, it is of interest and value to examine the extent in which multimodal literacy is assessed in national and international literacy tests. This is so as to surface any misalignment between the two and highlight gaps which curriculum planners and assessment designers can address. Given the significant influence that the nature of assessment has in shaping classroom practices and teaching priorities, it is imperative that assessment is aligned with curriculum goals. Our paper examines the assessment items in the visual text comprehension in Singapore’s national examinations, the GCE O’ Level and the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), for the English Language exam, as well as the literacy components of PISA and PIRLS reading items. We adopt the approach of an earlier study by Unsworth, Cope and Nicholls (2019) and position our work as a replication study, extended to a new context. In adopting a common approach, we hope to offer an independent verification of the framework, analyses and findings from the earlier study and contribute towards consolidating and building up proven practices in the analysis of text-image relations within the field of multimodal studies. Our results similarly show an overall low proportion of test items that deal with images and image-language relations in the Singapore and international assessments. While the proportion of questions where the image is essential or supports answering the question is higher for the Singapore GCE O’ Level exams, the role of images in the PSLE and international assessments is limited, which suggests a greater focus on assessing multimodal literacy is required. As curriculum reforms to incorporate multimodality in education become more commonplace around the world, we argue that attention on assessment must be the next frontier of change.

With increased access to technologies for reading, more understanding is needed about how adolescents engage with print and digital reading across school and out-of-school contexts. In this study, mobile ethnography was used to document the everyday print and digital reading practices of adolescent girls from one all-girls’ school. They responded to real-time researcher prompts about their reading across various timings, locations, and devices over four days, and participated in photo-elicitation interviews. Findings showed that as students moved between locations, they also transited across devices, platforms, and formats, making use of different print and digital resources for varied ways of reading. Their ability to ‘style-shift’ flexibly across the boundaries of school and personal spaces, various devices and platforms allowed them to independently optimise reading as a resource for their everyday leisure, information seeking, and learning purposes. Insights, implications, and challenges for learning in a post-pandemic digital age are discussed.

WiREAD+ is a web-based collaborative critical reading and learning analytics environment to scaffold learning and motivate students to develop richer dialogue and quality interactions with peers around multimodal texts. This paper reports on the pilots to scale up the use of WiREAD+ beyond the original context of Secondary School English Language (EL) learning to three distinct educational settings, namely, EL in a primary school, English Literature in a junior college (pre-university), and a tertiary-level Discourse Studies course. We report on learners’ perceptions in response to the use of the system and reflect on the potential and challenges in scaling up the system across different educational contexts, specifically on the three augmentations to the system which we have designed to improve its scalability readiness. Drawing from the findings of the pilot studies, we briefly discuss how we can support the wider adoption and deployment of the system across schools and settings.

In today’s digital age, literacy practices have shifted beyond the reading of print texts to include the viewing of multimodal texts that make meanings through resources such as language, images, animations, and music. The sole focus of literacy as the learning of a language is no longer sufficient for students to navigate the complex multimodal communicational landscape that our students inhabit. New literacies for viewing critically and representing knowledge effectively are required in the contemporary communicative landscape. This paper argues that Education 4.0 involves a requisite shift in our literacy curriculum, from that of a language-focused curriculum to that of multiliteracies, with reference to a research project on integrating multiliteracies within the context of recent English Language curricular reforms in Singapore. The paper concludes with aLim, F. V., Weninger, C., & T.T.H., Nguyen. (2021). "I expect boredom"- students' experiences and expectations of multiliteracies learning. Literacy, Online First. .pdf reflection on the curricular changes and pedagogic shifts that educators need to make so as to keep in step with the ever-changing world.